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Comment by mikebenfield | Hacker News Reader

This is so obviously false that I'm always amazed there are people who actually believe this.

In _every_ activity I've ever participated in where I can observe many people's performance and progression - including powerlifting, bodybuilding, various ball sports, mathematics, chess, theoretical CS, software engineering, etc - it is transparently obvious that people's natural abilities vary dramatically.

Although it's not the most common scenario (training and experience do matter), I have seen many situations where someone with, say, 6 months' haphazard and lazy experience will absolutely crush the performance of someone with 3 years of serious and dedicated training.

Talent is real.

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Thank you. I am quite stupid.

Talent is real, but generally speaking, ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake.

I'm not sure what "generally" means here. In professional sports, my failure of not getting into any major league will be due to your lack of talent. In higher-level math, my failure of passing any exam will be due to your lack of talent. In chemistry, my failure of not being able to consistently reach precision of under 0.1% is due to my lack of talent (and trust me, I really tried and followed all kinds of instructions to the greatest details, or so I thought). In mechanical engineering, my failure of not being able to piece out a 3D model from a 2D schematics is due to my lack of talent. In medicine, my failure of not being able to memorize thousands of latin terms for all the bones and organs is due to my lack of talent. In biochemistry, my failure of not being able to internalize the energy cycle in human body is due to my lack of talent. But on the other hand, you didn't even use a computer until switching your major to CS when you were 20 yet you became the best student in every single class in a prestigious university. That's your talent. You studied world history until you were 30 years old, yet you switched to physics and somehow got Fields medal, that's your talent.

Not all failures are due to lack of talent, for sure. A blank statement like " ascribing failure or lack of progress to lack of talent is a mistake " in the context of our discussion is nonetheless a mistake as well.

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